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Welcome to IACW

We are a diverse group of talented, fun loving, crafters who want to share loads of great stuff with you. Inspired by colour, paper, fabric, nature, patterns, sounds, architecture, we love to create and we're not afraid to experiment. We have our roots from around the world and are constantly learning and gaining inspiration from the world around us. We hope you enjoy your visit to our blog.

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We will regularly post our creative endeavours to INSPIRE and stimulate the CREATIVITY of our readers. Our new posting schedule offers you something for the weekend, with posts on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

Copyright

Please note that although we are happy to share our ideas and creations in the hope that they will inspire you, everything displayed on this site as well as our own personal blogs is copyright to the individual members of It's A Creative World and should not be directly copied.

Fathers day

August 10, 2012

So, whilst making the teacher gifts this year, I spent a little more time on Luke's Teacher - after all, she elected to have them for the second year in a row (crazy lady!) and got him through his SA-Ts with much better results than anticipated, plus 16 A's across his school report!

As you can see from the first picture, I made a co-ordinated set - card, envelope, keyring, picture-frame notice board and pen. Feeling very pleased with my little self (and wishing I'd kept the noticeboard!) I decided that we could do with one at home, a tool to keep track of everything.

We already have a calendar, and special dates on a small board, and a shopping list on the fridge, and a running to do list around the house. So I decided to try it with a multi-aperture frame, chopping the background paper to mix it up a bit...

No pretty bows and such yet, and still the cheapie multi-pack IKEA dry-wipe pens - I'm trying to get my husband to warm to the idea. But once he's onboard this frame will be a permanent fixture and possibly a little prettier, with a calendar in one place.

Plus, another version will be coming in to house my lists of craftiness (you can see them at the moment in two of our quadrants) so I can seperate out swaps, my Stampin' Up! business, other crafty committments (like here at IACW!), and cards or gifts I need to make for upcoming occasions.

I think these have a multitude of uses, with small or large, desk or wall frames - Christmas countdowns or last-minute gifts , Birthday presents, Teacher gifts, something for new Students, Mother and Father's day desk presents, use a plethora of them for Easter hunt clues, Valentine's messages, Wedding presents (or a more unique guestbook, given a permanent marker and space for a photo of the happy couple), Seed markers in the garden (with more permanent markers), Halloween countdown or treat-pot messages

You can use pre-printed jotter paper, digi printouts or real jotters if you're feeling thrifty - oddments of stash, stamping and journalling cards... Why not try it with a mirror?

June 15, 2007

Hello! It’s Jo here, extending a warm welcome to you all to my first post for It’s A Creative World. As it’s Father’s Day in the UK on Sunday, I thought I would take this opportunity to share some father/dad-themed layouts with you. I don’t know about you, but my children seem to get the lion’s share of my scrapping time, and I thought it would be appropriate to redress the balance a little, and scrap some of the many photos I have of my dad, and my daughters’ daddy! I haven’t done these as step-by-steps, as hopefully it’s fairly easy to see what I’ve done in each case, but there may be one that catches your eye and encourages you to go and scrap one of the men in your life!

Layout 2 - a father’s love – this layout was completed during a UK Scrappers cybercrop, and was from a class designed by Theresly, aka Shopperholic. Thanks to Theresly for permission to reproduce it here:

June 14, 2007

My Dad doesn't play golf or football or go fishing or sail or do any of those things that you find on the front of Fathers Day cards when you buy them from the shops. He likes colourful things - especially yellow and red and designs that are simple and not too fussy. This is just as well as to be honest, normally by the time I have made ten plus cards for special orders for other people I am usually fresh out of inspiration and time and he gets whatever I can make on the Sunday morning before he comes in from church.

Not this year though - I am organised!! His cards (one from me, one from my brother) have been in my card box for a couple of weeks all ready for this coming Sunday.

Card 1 is bright, colourful and easy to make. I've used Shabby Princess papers and printed the same pattern in different sizes. Cut the striped background to size, ink the edges and adhere to your card blank. Cut a strip of the circle paper and ink and adhere that too and then stitch around the edges on a sewing machine. I handcut the word 'dad' using Mandingo font and added some doodling around the edge to make it stand out. The photo turns are hand drawn and these and the letters are attached with foam pads. Finally I stamped my 'Happy Fathers Day' message, cut out and inked the edges and glued onto my card.

Card 2 is really simple to make. I covered the front of the card blank with Christina Cole rainbow striped paper and inked the edges. I used my bone tool to fold and crease a sheet of acetate and scalloped the edge with my EK Success corner rounder. I attached it on the back of my card with double sided tape and then traced along the scallops with a fine permanent pen. I painted some chipboard letters with a tester pot of emulsion paint from B&Q and when it dried I drew around the edges of the letters with a black pen and glued these to my acetate cover. Some ribbon and a few prima flowers finished my card

June 09, 2007

Gosh, it’s my turn again and I really can’t believe that we are already a week old. We really do hope that you are enjoying It’s a creative world as much as we are.

Anyhoo, today I am going to share one of my décor ideas. I used Jenni Bowlin’s vintage red line so I could get away with using it as a Father’s Day pressie as well. I also have details of a fantastic prize draw and an amazing special offer for you all. First, to the project.

I love having lots of pictures and memories around the house. But, I don’t always want to use photo frames and like to use things that are a bit different. I’ve seen wooden cubes you can buy to decorate but decided to use an offcut of wood to make mine. A bit of economy here and there pleases Graham and means more pennies for pretties. We had some wood left over from a DIY project but you could easily pick some up at your local timber merchants. This is also a handy project for using up those bits of stash that we all have kicking around the house.

I lightly sanded the cube and then used double sided tape to stick my papers and photos on. I then sanded the edges of the paper with a nail file and whizzed some brown ink over to muddy them up a bit.

The bird and the papers are from Jenni Bowlin, the buttons are Melissa Frances and the rub on is Basic Grey. I’m so happy that the Jenni Bowlin stuff is now available over here and I can fill my basket at A Trip Down Memory Lane.

Now onto the big news of the day and we have yet another prize draw for you. Yes, all of the lovely people who leave comments over the weekend will go into a draw to win a kit from Scrapbook Central. Please check back on Monday to claim your prize. It can be difficult to track you down if you don’t have a blog to link to so please do check back. We’d hate for you to miss out on your prize.

Not only do we have the fabulous kit as a prize but the lovely people at Scrapbook Central have also provided all our readers with a code to enjoy a whopping 15% off their lovely stock. Simply enter the code GEYJE50 at the checkout it is valid for one week and can be used once per person. Now that is a fab excuse to go shopping. Go on ………… You know you want to.

Thank you so much for visiting us and I hope that you enjoyed my project and would love to see any cubes that you make. My cube is 4"x4" but you can make them any size that you want.

June 08, 2007

Today is the 1 week anniversary of It's a Creative World, and what an exciting week it has been! Thank you all so very much for your support, encouragement and enthusiasm, without which we wouldn't be doing this.

Now to help us celebrate we have two exciting offers to share with you all this weekend! Neither of them are to be missed so be sure to check back tomorrow when Maria will tell you all about it! Ooh i'm such a tease :)

This week we have also had two wonderful ladies join our creative family. Trish, who inspired us all with her fab altered shopping bag on Wednesday. Trish makes the most wonderful jewellery using beautiful beads in gorgeous colours, and I certainly hope she has a few jewellery making classes lined up cause this lady has true talent that needs to be shared. If you are looking for a little crafting excitement this year Trish is one to watch!

And Jo, who's amazing style of scrapping is admired and loved! Jo's gallery is a treat of deliciousness, with two gorgeous girls, who I may add she takes the most gorgeous photos of! Her funky, zesty layouts will give you a zing this summer that will have you dancing on the ceiling! Don't let her out of your sight :)

When I first thought of starting this blog I not only wanted our wonderful design team to inspire you but also to give you ideas for upcoming events. And what better time to start, than right now when there is just over a week until Fathers Day.

The file folder I have used for this project is from Daisy D's and is a diecut so all you have to do is push the folder and file pages out and start putting it together. I printed my photographs 2 on a page using my Epson picturemate (they measure 3.5" x 2.5") and I found that to be a good size for the pages, leaving enough room for stamping, embellishments and journalling. I have used photos of my husband and his children that I took on a recent walk around the field to see the cows, thankfully I had brought the camera as the conditions where perfect to capture them all relaxed and not posing.

This is a great project to use up some embellishments you have been hoarding, those scraps of paper too precious to throw out, oh and a bit of that ribbon you have stashed away! On the tabs I have used stamped words, buttons, the dymo, and a making memories hinge.

Hint: When binding the album use a broad ribbon together with a thin ribbon. You are going to tie bows with the large ribbon and use the thinner one to secure the knot and ensure it doesn't get too tight or else your book will not open. Firstly, using both ribbons together, tie a knot making sure the book can still openthen using just the thin ribbon tie another knot over the 'combined ribbon' knot. This will keep the ribbon in place. Then tie a bow over both knots with the thick ribbon and trim the ends. For my folder I used thick green with thin pink ribbon.

File folders are also great way to showcase photos of holidays and trips that you don't want to fill a whole album with, but of course you need to scrap the occasion. But watch out they can be addictive!